JUNIPER
Warmth. That was the first thing I noticed.
Glorious heat blazing across the left side of my body.
Nothing had ever felt that good, that comforting.
The last thing I remembered was being cold—painfully cold—and growing sleepy in the woods.
Now, still groggy, I enjoyed not having the painful sting of snow on my face.
The second thing I noticed, the thing that made my mind twist with confusion, was the heat on my right side. Instead of waves, it was firm and soft, pressing against me, rising and falling in a pattern much like breathing.
My eyes snapped open, and I looked up, finding a massive man holding me against his chest, his muscled arms cradling me.
“Who the fuck are you?” The words struggled to get past my frozen lips. I tried to pull away, but I only managed to twist in his grip.
“Hang on,” he said. “Relax. It’s all right. Calm down.”
In my dazed state, all I could think about was the fact that I was in the arms of some strange man and—
Holy fuck, I’m naked! I was in nothing but a bra and panties, so not quite naked, but close enough.
Finally, I managed to shove my hands against his chest, pushing myself away from him.
Falling on the ground, I looked over, spotting the fire, the heat of it bleeding into the stone beneath me.
Between the fire and the man’s body, I wasn’t freezing anymore.
That thought sent a flush of heat to my cheeks, and I spun, hugging my knees to my chest to cover my breasts.
“Where am I?” I finally managed to say.
He sat on the other side of the fire, hands held up in surrender. “I found you out in the forest. You were nearly frozen, and I brought you here to warm you up.”
It was then, as he spoke, that I realized who he was. The intervening years had done nothing to his age. He still had the same strong jaw, sharp eyes, and dusty blond hair.
In my scramble to get away from him, I’d ended up farther from the fire. I shivered, my teeth chattering as I spoke. “Are…you…Leviathan Cross?”
He sighed. “Come on, get close to the fire. You still aren’t warmed up enough yet.”
“I’ll…b-b-be fine,” I chattered. “W-w-where are my clothes?”
“Over there,” he said, pointing to where my clothing was spread out near the fire. Steam rose from them as the heat dried them. Shit. Even the thought of tugging on those cold, wet things sent another shiver through me.
“You didn’t answer my q-q-question,” I said, leveling my eyes on him again.
He rolled his eyes, irritation and exasperation evident on his face. “Yes. I’m Leviathan Cross. Now, can you please move closer to the fire?”
This was the man I’d come looking for, sitting right here with me.
In my mind, I’d expected to meet him as equals in the forest, ready to make my request in a respectable and verbose manner.
I had not planned on having him save me from freezing to death.
I had definitely not planned on being half naked and shivering in a cave.
With a sigh of resignation, I scooted closer to the fire, doing my best to suppress the moan of pleasure as the heat washed over me.
Leviathan waited until I’d gotten comfortable before speaking again. “You can call me Levi,” he said.
“Okay,” I muttered, trying to think of a way to broach the subject I wanted to talk about.
He stared at me, a bemused smile on his lips. “Uh…this is usually when you tell me your name.”
“Sorry. I’m Juniper Hollis. You can call me June. It’s nice to meet you, Levi,” I added, trying to sound less terrified than I felt.
He cocked an eyebrow and grinned at me. “We’ve already met. On a summer night a long time ago, if I’m not mistaken?”
My cheeks flushed, but I didn’t let his words rattle me, even as I remembered how his lips had felt against mine.
“I guess that’s true,” I mumbled. “You know, you didn’t tell me you were famous back then.”
“Am I famous?” he asked, looking like he knew exactly what I meant and was being purposefully obtuse.
“The Demon Wolf?” I said, exasperated at how this was going.
“The ancient ageless shadow that stalks the forest, abducting poor unsuspecting rejected shifters. Doing God knows what with them.” Sacrifices?
Orgies? Food? I thought to myself. “That’s pretty famous.
You’re known for almost a hundred miles in each direction.
The nearest seven packs all have stories about you. ”
He tilted his head, accepting the description. “I guess that makes sense.”
Turning his eyes to me again, he gave me a strange look.
It felt like he was peering straight into my soul.
There was nothing lewd or sexual about it, even in my state of undress.
It almost would have been better if he’d looked at me like some lascivious scumbag, because that I could have understood. This was…weird.
“Primroses,” he said at last, the words light on his lips.
“Excuse me?” I said, frowning.
“When I was trying to get you warmed up, you said something about primroses. Why did you say that?”
What a weird thing to ask about. But then I remembered thinking I’d seen flowers. I didn’t want to tell this guy I’d been hallucinating.
“No idea,” I said, shrugging a shoulder.
Sitting back, he ran a hand along the stubble of his chin, looking a little disappointed.
Turning, I glanced at the entrance of the cave and gasped.
The snow was blocking half of the exit. It kept the wind out and helped hold in the heat from the fire, but if it kept going like that, we’d be stuck here until the snow melted.
There was no other way around what I needed to ask. Might as well get it out now, since we wouldn’t be going anywhere for a while.
“I came out here to look for you,” I said, shifting closer to the fire.
The look he gave me was inscrutable. I couldn’t tell if he was trying to figure out if I was telling the truth, or if I was simply pulling his leg.
There was no smile on his face as his eyes bored into me, sending strangely pleasant tingles through me.
Again, I remembered how his mouth had felt on mine, how intense that kiss had been.
My first—and the most legendary—kiss of my life.
Sitting here with him, a weird sense of connection filled me, like a tug deep in my chest. I remembered feeling that same thing the night he’d found me crying in the woods. Now, I sensed it again, and it was impossible to ignore.
“Do you want to tell me why you came looking for the Demon Wolf, as you call me,” Levi said. “If I’m that scary, why go trudging into the forest in the middle of a blizzard?”
“First of all,” I said, clearing my throat, “it wasn’t supposed to be a blizzard. The forecast said an inch or two at most.”
“Fair enough,” he chuckled.
“Second, I came looking for you because I need your help.”
“My help?” he said, eyebrows shooting up, thumb pressed to his own chest. “What can I do for you?”
Here came the difficult part. After taking a deep, steadying breath, I explained what had happened the night before, as well as how Anders had always looked down upon me for not having a wolf.
I told Levi how I needed to become Anders’s mate to stay with my grandparents, to keep my home, and my friends.
When I was done, I wasn’t so cold anymore.
Levi fed more wood into fire. As he leaned forward, he was mere inches away. He smelled of woodsmoke, sawdust, of clean soap, and the same minty toothpaste I recalled from our kiss that night.
“Let me get this straight,” he said. “This Anders guy has treated you like shit your whole life, and now you want to be his mate? Why?”
I groaned in frustration. “I told you. If I can’t change his mind, I’ll be exiled, and I won’t be able to see my family again. They’re all I have.”
“I get that,” he said, but he sounded less convinced than I’d hoped. “That still doesn’t change the fact that he sounds like an asshole.”
Very true. Sure, a lot of the pack wasn’t happy that he’d become alpha, but he was kind enough to everyone.
He was even cordial and nice to Beatrice and my grandparents.
I was the one who brought out his dickish, prejudiced behavior.
It all stemmed from me not having an inner wolf, and if I changed that, then maybe he would treat me the way he did everyone else.
I’d never be able to bring myself to love him, but I could stomach being his mate if it meant I’d get to stay in Idlewild and take care of my family.
When I explained that to Levi, he let out a derisive snort.
“Sweetheart, if a man doesn’t treat you right, he doesn’t deserve your time.
He acts like you are dogshit to be scraped off his heel, and you want to convince him to take you in and be your mate?
” He grimaced in disgust. “And how are you going to get him to take you back? He rejected you in front of your entire pack. And you still haven’t explained what I have to do with all this. How am I supposed to help you?”
“Uhm…” I hugged my knees to my chest again, still uncomfortable being undressed around him.
“I don’t have an inner wolf. The rumors say that the reason you’ve lived so long is because you spend most of your time in your wolf form—more time than any shifter I’ve ever heard of.
If that’s true, then that means you would have a really good idea about the connection between the man and wolf parts of your soul.
I was hoping you’d help me find mine. The inner wolf, as well as the confidence I need to go back and make Anders take me as his mate. Can you show me how to shift?”
Levi stared at me for what felt like an eternity. When he finally opened his mouth, I cringed inwardly, awaiting his ire or ridicule.
Instead, he shook his head slowly and let out a sarcastic chuckle. “You don’t ask for much, do you, Juniper Hollis?”